Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-06-14
PITTSBURG IRON INDUSTRIES.
Orders Unusually Plentiful for the Season
and Future Prospects Good.

S~--0~-
and Future Prospects Good.
! PITTsBURG, June 14.-The demand fol
iron and steel is still very great, consider
ing the immense volume that has beer
turned out in this country for almost q
whole year.
Generally at this time there is falling
off. At least the men and manufacturers
make it a stop. The men do not care to
work much during the three months to
come, and the manufacturers use all such
time in making repairs. Buyers have be-
came accustomed to this, consequently
very few orders are received during this
and next month.
This year is an exception. Orders are
still coming init is safe to say at the
rate of 600 tons a day. A call at the
offices of some of our leading iron firms
shows that each morning it requires hall
/ of the forenoon to examine the mails,
| through which contracts are coming IN,
not only from all parts of the United
| States. but from Canada, South America,
and many other foreign countries. The
demand is still very great, but change
! is sure to. follow unless the coke strike
comes TO an end soon. Two weeks ago
| it was stated that for q month our manu-
iacturers would have no trouble in getting
all the pig iron they need. There is still
metal to be gotten, but the scarcity Is
| beginning, said several leading men in the
business, and if there is not a change some
mills will be closed before they will run
on bought iron.
! So far as has been learned there is not a
! ton of unsold pig iron within several hun
Gred miles of Pittsburg. In this city
metal that has been stacked by for some
years is being disposed of. At one place
! over !, 600 tons have been held for almost
eleven years for higher prices, which have
! lust been sold In this country all the
iron and steel mills are in operation, ex-
cepting two. Quite a number OF those
now running have been put from double to
single turn. At the present time Jones *
| Laughlin is the only large firm west of the
mountains still capable of making aS much
as what they need in their extensive works.
| They have three blast furnaces making
! together 100 tons q day, half BeSSemcr and
half of mill metal. Thus far they have
been able with nearly the amount Of coke
! that they need to buy enough of coke tn
! keep them in blast Besides these three
| furnaces there are only two Others, making
| five in all, and the daily output from these
is about 800 tons. That leaves at the
present way of running fully $500 tons to
be bought for the consumption OF Ourmills
every day.
Carnegie Brothers and Carnegie, Phipps
| x Co will be affected more hy the coke
strike than three tifths of all the other
firms around here, mostly will this be the
case at the Edgar Thompson Steel Mill,
where they need over 200 tons of pig
metal every day. When everything is all
right they take that much metal from
| their blast furnaces, in liquid state, Ia
/ the cOnverters, but so much cold metal
would first have to be melted. Though
| in the work of converting Bessemer PIC
! iron into steel ingOts, it is impossible Ia
make rs much from cold pig iron as it is
from liquid metal So far they have been
able to run this plant and
| even if they still have
plenty of metal at hand the coke strike
! has caused a restriction of finished steel
of over 200 tons a day at both mills. But
at their two mills along Penn avenue they
! have so far not been inCOny, nienCed. The
supply OF metal is up to the demand,
which is about 40 tons for both mills on
double turn, with 40 pudding furnaces in
each Altogether this week there are this
week nearly 900 pudding furnaces on
double, and 139 are on single turn. OI
this number Is in the steel mill of Hussey,
Howe q Co. are always on five heats.
SO long as mills are on double that in
ordinrry times were on run and half time
or single turn, as is the case now, there
are certainly the best prospects in store
| for some time to come.